Regarding Bangkok Senator Suphon Supapong’s indication that the bombings in Hat Yai, Songkhla, may be a plan by the United States to interfere in Thailand’s domestic affairs according to the Pentagon[’s] plan, Perayot Rahimmula, a Democrat party-list MP and former academic with expertise in turmoil in the three southern border provinces said that the story of foreign interference must be said to contain some truth because [he] has noticed that since [sic] the two years of violence, there have been many embassy officers from many countries in Europe and Asia traveling down to the three border provinces area. At the time [he] was still a professor at Prince of Songkhla University (Pattani campus) and therefore was always being invited to comment to these embassy officers.

Suspicious of “European, American students” flocking to research Southern Fire
[“Southern Fire” is Matichon’s pet name for violence in the South]

“What is surprising is that there are many Ph.D. students from Europe and America researching the turmoil in the three Southern border provinces area, yet all of them do research on the same topic. So there arises a question: what is this? When there was a joint-session of the parliament to discuss turmoil in the three southern border provinces, there were only officers from the United States embassy [and no other embassies] so [that] may be reason enough to think that there is probably CIA involvement in the turmoil in the South.

Mr. Perayot continued that the event of bombing in Hat Yai was an attempt to make the event have similarities to international terrorism [— for example,] similar to intervention from al-Qaeda or JI [—] so as to open up the possibility for a superpower to come in and intervene in Thailand’s domestic affairs. So what Mr. Sophon said [must] be considered an affirmation of the fact that took place.

You see, any old hack like Senator Suphon (a former oil executive) can prattle on about the Pentagon, but it takes an expert academic like Khun Perayot to put all the pieces together — from the embassy officers (ostensibly!) concerned about human rights to Ph.D. students (supposedly!) intrigued by the indigenous ways — and come to the startling discovery: they’re all working for the CIA.

So don’t be surprised the next time you see an expression of concern from a foreign government about harsh treatments of suspected terrorists or a research paper sympathetic to the “militants’” cause, it’s all a cover for The Plot.

The Plot?

The United States military and intelligence resources aren’t nearly stretched enough. A new foreign adventure is needed just to give the boys and girls something to do.

P.P.S. Ambassador Boyce, if you’re reading this, I can trust you to keep it in mind the next time you see your Democrat “friends”, right?

Update The last paragraph of the cited text was added later. I must stress again — stress — that the citation’s horrendous prose is original and not a result of a ham-fisted translation. The only reason it may not sound as bad in Thai as in English is that such an awful writing style is so prevalent that most Thais are totally accustomed to them.

It’s not the CIA, but it certainly has a nasty American smell to it. I just came back from the “9th International Conference on Thai Studies” at DeKalb, University of Northern Illinois. Guess what their main theme was? You can not imagine my horror at how “Thai Studies” was hijacked to be the study of whether we colonized the Pattani or not, and that since historically we sent troops there to quell a rebellion, yes, we are imperialistic, yada, yada, yada. More horrifying for me to be woken up from the dream of our national rhetoric “We were never colonized” to realize that we were unconsciously colonized in our mindframes particularly by the US, especially when we repeat their rhetoric. It’s silly you would mention that it is oil they’re fighting for. Didn’t you notice the resurgence of the South happenned only after 9/11 and some declared “war on terrorism”? And I still can’t get over the fact that a conference on Thai studies is conducted exclusively in English!! Try doing French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean Studies in English.

America has long been embarking on plans to colonize the world. Thailand and Iraq are not the last of its victims. Here is a web link to a book on how to takeover Thailand. The pitiful part thing is that Aye Chuan gave it to them easily in a single year. What is worse is that the Thai media is giving that fool respect even when he is supporting America’s second tool of colonization: NGO’s and nonprofits. An acquaintance of mine has a friend who heads one of these organizations and the guy just bought his own private jet. Those silly Thais who support the Democrats, Aye Chuan, and these organizations are practically giving their services for nil, while those people who are heading them rides in a fancy jet and eats meals more expensive than 100 Thais could afford in a single year. I do not know any politicians in the world that support these organizations, except Thai politicians. If Chuan, and the democrats were here in America, they’d better watch out for fly poop.

I wrote this post just to provide a taste the crude, reflexive, and groundless anti-Americanism that has long pervaded Thailand, especially among the so-called journalists and academics. While this comment thread clearly reflects that, it also demonstrates something much larger. That is, the Thais’ staunch defiance of, what’s good, label politics and, what’s bad, rational assumptions.

To begin with, the Left-Right labels have always been a non-starter. I’m not one to bandy about “western” this and that (there’s another loaded term), but Leftism and Rightism are purely western concepts that never really took root here in Thailand — whatever your favorite Thai history book says. Indeed, I would argue that this dichotomy (now distinctly diverged from the one of the French Revolution) is less and less useful in describing even Western politics. For instance, how can any ideology — in this case, the Right wing — possibly count both George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac in its ranks? (And I wouldn’t even touch the Iranian theocrats, who are also labeled “right-wing” by the BBC.)

Being outgrowths of the Right and Left, Conservatism and Progressivism are out the window, too. Liberalism is even worse, having opposite meanings in America and France (and I must say I side with the latter in this case).

Philosophies identified with individual theorists like Marxism might be expected to be more well-defined but, as with Marxism, may not actually be so. In any case, they’re far beyond the intellectual reach of most Thai people, particularly the dunces that plague the media and the “academia”. Thirayuth Boonmi’s designation of himself as “former Marxist” is as laughable as The Economist’s description of the Thai Democrats as “technocratic and progressive”. I haven’t read enough Giles Ungpakorn to say outright (and, with luck, won’t have to) but I suspect the same with his “​(current) Marxist” credentials.

So what ism’s are we left with? Along with anti-Americanism, nationalism and xenophobia (a virtual ism) can aptly describe many Thais, including very much MP Peerayut and the two commenters above. Yet, look at how this inclination manifests itself: Peerayut is a Democrat, Killlerbee hates the Democrats’ guts and Nui wants people to speak Thai at Thai-studies conferences…

So there you have the inapplicability of label politics. The breakdown of rational assumptions will have to wait until the next post. Meanwhile, all of you, including Nui and Killerbee, are invited to chime in.